Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

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Dr. B
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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Dr. B » Sun May 06, 2018 3:32 pm

Due to the fact they don't gain access to higher spell levels and have lower amount of spells per day. You will always have people argue the other side of the story to quote the world of warcraft forums "Its fine learn to play". i think the DM's/Design could give Bards a look and see what they think...can't ask more than that.
This is because they're not supposed to be powerful casters. Since they're supposed to be skilled at a variety of things, their spells are meant to augment those other skills, which is why playing a "caster bard" is really a bad idea and quite off the mark. They are meant to take up other focuses.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Tourmaline » Sun May 06, 2018 8:30 pm

They're pretty much limited to a strength based, heavy armor wearing, limited spell casting (no 6 level in armor with still spell) build now though. I don't say they aren't powerful and there are certainly great RP avenues but it is limited to the archetypical skald or battlechanter instead of the freewheeling Bard's Tale type.

I think there could be a path that rewards light armor, dex-based bards who are more hybrid rogue/caster and can actually make use of spells as well as stealth and other skills you have to write off currently. Give them a weaker sneak attack, let them use light armor without spell failure, give them a few more skill points in exchange for something or other. It would also be a great boon for hin and gnome bards, as -2 strength, small weapons and no big shields are not a strength-based bard's friend.

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Dr. B
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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Dr. B » Mon May 07, 2018 2:54 am

That's a good point about level 6 spells. Another solution might be to introduce a Bard-specific light armor that reduces ASF, but that is a bit better than spellthief armor. Maybe. There are certainly some balance issues to consider. I'll admit spellthief armor is a bit paper-thin, but the flip-side is having Bardadins running around in some swanky new light armor casting level 6 spells.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Iceborn » Mon May 07, 2018 4:32 am

Honestly, while bards do get a few interesting spells, the latter-level spells suck all sort of lemons for them.
Take a look at level 5 and level 6.
5:
*Ethereal visage
*Greater dispelling
*Healing circle
*Mind fog
*Summon creature V

6:
*Dirge
*Energy buffer
*Ice storm
*Mass haste
*Summon creature VI

Ethereal visage is nice, but it's rounds/level, and that means it's only good for one encounter for most bards.
Greater dispelling ain't bad, but it doesn't seem like something you'd keep prepared.
Healing circle is good at lower levels, and at latter levels becomes just a little tool to spare a few healing kits.
Mind fog ain't bad, specially if you can chain it with an allied caster.
Summon creature V is five stacks of lame by the time you get it.

Dirge is awesome, but the DC makes it so it's only remotely useful for caster bards, which we sorta agreed don't really exist.
Energy buffer is cool.
Ice Storm is completely useless to bards, as it deals at best, a whooping 40 of damage.
Mass haste is life, mass haste is love, but mass haste is level 6 and cannot be extended/stilled.
Summon Creature VI is six stacks of lame by the time you get it.

I don't think any bardadin is likely to be 'spamming' any of these spells, or that they are going to get anything closer to unbalanced if they do.
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Dr. B
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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Dr. B » Mon May 07, 2018 7:13 pm

Ethereal Visage had better be good, because it prevents someone from disrupting your Bard Song with a silence wand. Dirge, Energy Buffer, and Mass Haste are the reason for my concern noted above. Those are quite nice spells.

This is the end of my participation in this thread, for future reference. There's really nothing more to be said on this topic, IMO.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Iceborn » Mon May 07, 2018 9:08 pm

Actually, I'll amend something.
Dirge is not even useful for caster bards for one very simple reason: DC.
Being a fort spell in a server where everybody stacks con, you'll be fishing for 1s no matter the build.
The standard bard would have a DC of about 19. Even if you go full charisma and take all the apt foci, your DC would be about...
10+14+6+4; 34. That's pretty much in the 5% of most combat-oriented builds.
If it was a Will save, you could at least chain it with Mindfog.
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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by JediMindTrix » Mon May 07, 2018 9:11 pm

Okay you've a point, some of the spells are underwhelming.
Last edited by JediMindTrix on Mon May 07, 2018 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Dr. B
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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Dr. B » Mon May 07, 2018 9:51 pm

Iceborn wrote:
Mon May 07, 2018 9:08 pm
Actually, I'll amend something.
Dirge is not even useful for caster bards for one very simple reason: DC.
Being a fort spell in a server where everybody stacks con, you'll be fishing for 1s no matter the build.
The standard bard would have a DC of about 19. Even if you go full charisma and take all the apt foci, your DC would be about...
10+14+6+4; 34. That's pretty much in the 5% of most combat-oriented builds.
If it was a Will save, you could at least chain it with Mindfog.
I swore I wouldn't do this.


It's good in PvE, where many enemies tend to have lower saving throws. You also have access to a very strong curse song, which makes this even more effective. Did you see my post about an EDR con bard with spellthief armor? Essentially, that build will give you what you are complaining can't be achieved. You can build for it, and it is attainable. Energy buffer or wounding whispers only make this build harder to assail. The result is a Bard who is not effective as a melee combatant, but very sought after in a party-support role--that's the tradeoff, and I think it's a reasonable one.

The change you are proposing will probably result in a variation on the 20/6/4 divine dip Bard that sacrifices a bit of strength for more intelligence, then maxes UMD and wears ranger's runic studded leather, and then has access to level 6 Bard Spells (which are good, despite your claims to the contrary). I could test this out later, but my hunch is, especially with access to Harper Paragon, it will be somewhat broken, at least in PvE.

Bards are extremely powerful, and any boost to their mechanical power along these lines would be incautious.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Iceborn » Tue May 08, 2018 12:17 am

Not to keep stomping my feet, but if only one build benefits from the core spells of a bard, isn't that like, poorly designed?
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Dr. B
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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Dr. B » Tue May 08, 2018 12:32 am

You mean, more specifically, the level 6 spells of a bard, right? Because the current builds that take still spell most certainly depend on the Bard's level 1-5 spells to be as effective as they are, so I'm not sure of the precision of the claim that "only one build benefits from the core spells of a Bard".

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Nitro » Tue May 08, 2018 12:36 am

Iceborn wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 12:17 am
Not to keep stomping my feet, but if only one build benefits from the core spells of a bard, isn't that like, poorly designed?
Looking at it in isolation, sure. But there's a lot more to bards than just the spells, as detailed by a lot of different posts suggesting very powerful builds in this very thread. If you got many bard levels, you get a lot of bard spells, some of which are amazing, some which are less amazing, but none of which are the only features of the bard because it's not a pure caster. And it's not like it's inflexible either, there's dozens of builds that benefits from having bard (And their various spells) in them, be it as a dump or deeper investment, you can even go pure bard more successfully than other pure classes.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Ork » Tue May 08, 2018 3:31 am

Truthfully, bards aren't useful as casters. The majority of their spells can be supplemented with wands, and ironically using wands only makes them nigh undispellable.

The powerhouse comes in the form of bard song.

I'm playing a bard at the moment that has 8 CHA simply because he won't be using the spellbook at all.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by TimeAdept » Tue May 08, 2018 8:13 am

please don't tell people to make 16-20+ bards w/ 8 cha

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Dr. B » Tue May 08, 2018 2:00 pm

Ork wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 3:31 am
Truthfully, bards aren't useful as casters. The majority of their spells can be supplemented with wands, and ironically using wands only makes them nigh undispellable.
Not ethereal visage, which is one of the most important spells in their complement. Scrolls, sure, but who has time to go looking for those? They also have a lower CL

War Cry is also a nice little boon in PvE, and wounding whispers is awesome--but the lower CL versions on scrolls isn't.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Ork » Tue May 08, 2018 10:12 pm

TimeAdept wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 8:13 am
please don't tell people to make 16-20+ bards w/ 8 cha
Why not? There are 3 spells in the spellbook that are useful beyond their wand alternatives. Wounding whisper, war cry & ethereal visage. All of these spells are nice but they are not worth the dispellability of a CL 16-20.

It's viable.

The only bard build that isn't outright dispel bait is the 20 bard / 5 HP /5 fighter due to a CL 25.

A level 20 bard has a 50% chance to lose on each buff. A level 16 bard is much much worse. And thats just on a base 22 CL dispel. Almost abysmal on a epic abjurer.

It's a pain in the a when ever mob that flings a dispel strips you of major buffs.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by R0GUE » Tue May 08, 2018 10:55 pm

Why wouldn't you at least want healing spells to save yourself some gold on some healing kits?

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Iceborn » Wed May 09, 2018 12:09 am

From a purely mechanical point of view, and ignoring the aberration that negative-charisma bards are...
Yeah.
All the bard spells that are worth casting, you can get from a wand. Healing Circle is not in that list; it's just a tiny tool that serves in very few situations. There's even an harp with healing circle in carpentry crafting, making it even more redundant.
If you were to have, say, 16 of charisma just to cast something like healing circle, I'm afraid to tell you those are all ability scores that you would have better invested literally anywhere else.
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Cortex
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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Cortex » Wed May 09, 2018 12:21 am

unless you dipped into paladin or bg in which case that 16 cha turns you into a (un)holy champ
:)

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by TheShadowdove » Wed May 09, 2018 12:49 am

Bard shadowdancers used to be good rogue hunters.

But ya, sucks you need a gimmick to play a bard. It's better as a dip usually. Whereas other casters or rogue types can be used as dips or as primary classes in builds.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by TimeAdept » Wed May 09, 2018 7:30 am

Iceborn wrote:
Wed May 09, 2018 12:09 am
From a purely mechanical point of view, and ignoring the aberration that negative-charisma bards are...
Yeah.
All the bard spells that are worth casting, you can get from a wand. Healing Circle is not in that list; it's just a tiny tool that serves in very few situations. There's even an harp with healing circle in carpentry crafting, making it even more redundant.
If you were to have, say, 16 of charisma just to cast something like healing circle, I'm afraid to tell you those are all ability scores that you would have better invested literally anywhere else.
all stat buffs
wounding whispers
GMW
Imp invis
warcry
visages
haste
mass haste
mage armor
circle vs align
prot align
displacement
greater dispel

all things that are vastly better when cast by a CL 20+ bard and not wanded, do you really want to be using wands every 7 minutes for II when you can just cast it. even GMW is better at higher CLs for duration purposes and saves you begging scrolls to have a +5 weapon.

The bard spell list is not bad, and the spells on it are absolutely worth having and using. Dumping 20 levels into the trash with 8 cha so you can have +20 lore and bard song just feels like an absolute waste of the class. But I also don't subscribe to "literally worthless because dispels happen".
The only bard build that isn't outright dispel bait is the 20 bard / 5 HP /5 fighter due to a CL 25.
26 bard/4 fighter
26 bard/4 pallybg
30 bard
25 bard/5 SD

four right off the top of my head.

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by Cortex » Wed May 09, 2018 10:15 am

Using Harper Paragon as an example is a bit unfair, the path is super busted and will eventually need changing, it just hasn't been a high priority.
:)

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Re: Bards and their Sucky Greatness [A massive rant about bards]

Post by JediMindTrix » Wed May 09, 2018 5:42 pm

Cortex wrote:
Wed May 09, 2018 10:15 am
Using Harper Paragon as an example is a bit unfair, the path is super busted and will eventually need changing, it just hasn't been a high priority.
cuz so few people play Harper's even with a strong path available lmao sad

EDIT: And I guess redesigning that path actually means redesigning the other ones too. sounds like a lotta work >.<

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